The war on culture has played out in many ways over the past year, as chronicled by the bloggers/substackers,podcasters to whom I link below. There’s famously the mess at the Kennedy Center, but also a theater company “blacklisted”/defunded by a state arts council; a student production canceled because of a new state anti-DEI law; a “visa freeze” that’s wreaking havoc on international cultural exchange.
Commenters look too at the way that theater has been responding.
The theater blogosphere’s look back at 2025 is not all about outrage. There are Top 10 and Year in Review posts by Don Shewey, Janice Simpson and Jeff Kyler. Kevin Daly in Theatre Aficionado offers his usual two end-of-year posts – his only blog posts each year — all the show music he listened to, and all the movies he saw.Adam Szymkowicz’s review of the year was a personal and numerical accounting of his playwriting (eg “In production news, overall I had 3 more than last year. 193 vs 190”), prefaced with what it was like finally to be a full-time playwright, without having to work full-time: He thought there would be more time for writing and thinking.
But it is hard to get away from what’s happening even in the account of everyday theatergoing, In Shewey’s account of the plays he saw at the Under the Radar Festival for his blog Another Eye Opens, he notes the director’s note in the printed program of Mabou Mines production of Samuel Beckett’s All That Fall.
“For desperate artists in these present wounded times, we look to Beckett’s defiance in the face of censorship and his active resistance again fascism for inspiration…”
Brian Eugenio Herrera’s latest #TheatreClique, his own periodic roundup of noteworthy theater writing (not limited to blogs, etc), links to several stories about the culture wars. These include: The participation of Twin Cities theaters in the general strike called to protest the violence in Minneapolis committed by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — and this was before the second killing, of Alex Pretti; a federal court ruling that West Texas A&M University can ban drag performances on campus and, separately, the origin and trajectory of anti-crossdressing laws in the United States; and An Open Letter to Richard Grenell , the new head of the Kennedy Center, by Emil J. Kang in his own substack, The Reprise. This last says in part:
“You’ve argued that arts institutions cannot sustain themselves if they present “unpopular programming that doesn’t pay the bills,” and that what’s needed is popular programming to resolve financial strain. This belief is understandable. It is also mistaken…The nonprofit arts are not a failed business model. They are a public good that we have failed to defend. The money we “lose” is not inefficiency. It is the purchase price of cultural possibility. We cannot let the language of the market determine what we value….”
Kang was not the only commentator to write about, and to, the Kennedy Center.
In The David Desk 2, David Sheward reserved special ire for the changes to the Kennedy Center Kennedy Center Horrors (about the Kennedy Center Honors) and My E-Mail to the Kennedy Center (“I am an American citizen writing to express my displeasure and outrage…”)
In Nothing for the Group, Lauren Halvorsen reports on the cancellation of the theater piece “12 Last Songs” from the Under the Radar Festival, because ten of the members of 13-member company couldn’t get visas. She points out that the Trump administration announced plans to freeze indefinitely visa processing for 75 countries.
Howard Sherman recounts the canceling by the University of Central Oklahoma, citing a new anti-DEI state law, of a student production of “Boy My Greatness “ a play by Zoe Senese-Grossberg about boys during the Elizabethan era who played Shakespeare’s women. The students raised enough money to produce the play off-campus, but the experience left the students shaken. “What are we allowed to do? What are not allowed to do?…We are entering the territory of censorship, and that is scary. It’s scary to me that we as 20-year-olds are having to fight against this,” says the student. There is at least one clue she was born for this fight; her name is Liberty Welch.
In The Bad Boy of Musical Theater’s post ‘Twas a Year Full of New Line, 2025, Scott Miller explains his theater company’s year of struggle in verse:
‘Twas a year full of New Line, still lurching toward stable;
Our budget’s quite tight, but we do what we’re able.
They say that we all have to suffer for art,
But the making of art is the easier part;
It’s the bowing and scraping and begging for money,
To pay for the art and the artists to run free;
We suffer alright, and that suff’ring ain’t done, G…
The Missouri Arts Council, which once we could trust,
Decided to yank all their funding from us!
For thirty-three years, they had funded New Line,
Now they’ve blacklisted us, to send us a sign:
Our founding philosophy makes them so sad,
‘Cause we value diversity; they think that’s bad.
See, Missouri’s a red state — and stark raving mad!
In OnStage Blog, Chris Peterson lists 5 Musicals You Should Avoid if You Support ICE, offering satiric warning labels for
Allegiance, Hadestown, The Band’s Visit, Urinetown, and Ragtime, then observing
“Musical theatre keeps returning to these stories not because artists love nostalgia, but because history keeps handing us the same lesson and daring us to ignore it again.Theatre doesn’t fix policy. But it does remind us who policy affects. And if the art keeps siding with the vulnerable, the displaced, and the people caught in the machinery… that might be telling us something worth sitting with after the curtain comes down.”
In Winter Storm Exposes Broadway’s “Show Must Go On” Problem, Peterson echoes (and quotes) theater workers’ two basic complaints — the valuing of box office over safety, and the delay in making decisions about whether to cancel or not — which showed a lack of leadership on the part of the Broadway League and producers alike.
Ken Davenport sees some good news in the latest demographic report of the Broadway audience. For example, the average age of the Broadway theatergoer is 41. Three years ago it was 44. I”t’s the most valuable report you’ll read this year, and it’s the blueprint for Broadway’s future. This is how Broadway grows. Not in seasons, but in decades. And I plan on being around for the long haul. Hope you will too.
In Broadway Journal, Philip Boroff, who focuses on scoops about the up and down finances of Broadway shows (plus the Public Theater) spent much of 2025 chronicling the state of New York State’s tax credit for Broadway productions. His first post of 2026: Governor Hochul Proposes $150 Million Production Tax Credit Extension
I can’t resist returning to Adam, whose latest post is his 1,124th interview with a playwright, This one is with Sophie McIntosh, who, in response to Adam’s request for plugs, says “with Adam’s blessing (thank you, Adam!), I’m starting my own interview series called talks with theatermakers.
“talks with theatermakers #1 – an interview with Leah Plante-Wiener”
What idea or project are you fixated on right now?
The project that I am mothering most intensely right now is Baby Butcher Choke For Free, running March 18-21 at The Brick.
